Month: February 2025

AI gets cheesy

Google remakes Super Bowl ad after AI cheese gaffe

Google has re-edited an advert for its leading artificial intelligence (AI) tool, Gemini, after it overestimated the global appetite for Gouda.
The commercial – which was supposed to showcase Gemini’s abilities – was created to be broadcast during the Super Bowl.
It showed the tool helping a cheesemonger in Wisconsin write a product description by informing him Gouda accounts for “50 to 60 percent of global cheese consumption”.
However, a blogger pointed out on X that the stat was “unequivocally false” as the Dutch cheese was nowhere near that popular.
Replying to him, Google executive Jerry Dischler, insisted this was not a “hallucination” – where AI systems invent untrue information – blaming the websites Gemini had scraped the information from instead.
“Gemini is grounded in the Web – and users can always check the results and references,” he wrote.

Just as well someone did, cos apparently no one at Google checked to see if it was right or not. Obviously it wasn’t THEIR fault, it was the fault of all the other websites carrying this apparently incorrect information that Jerry’s throwing under the bus; curious that Gemini apparently only found websites with the wrong information and didn’t question it. Seems you need actual intelligence for that…

Pinegrove

Had to go to a funeral a couple of days ago at Pinegrove Memorial Park, which is out at Minchinbury and consequently a LONG way from my usual stamping grounds (such as they are)… fortunately had transport to take me there and back; unfortunately that meant I was dependent on them and couldn’t take any time to explore and so I only managed to get this one photo and I’m not even sure what it actually is. Just that it’s a bit past the chapel (which you can click to enlarge if you like) as you go in. Pinegrove looks awfully interesting, and I’d be interested in going back one day for a further look around… albeit hopefully on a day when the weather’s less boiling than it was on Wednesday morning.

RIP Mike Ratledge

RIP Mike Ratledge, composer and keyboardist primarily for Soft Machine, who has left us at the age of 81. Ratledge possessed one of the more formidable bits of rock’n’roll facial hair—albeit I think he may have been trumped on that front by his later Softs bandmate Karl Jenkins—and I will confess to being amused that the Instagram post where I got the above picture also included this one of the early band where he wears neither the ‘tache nor the shades that he was otherwise known for:

Young master Wyatt’s scrappy facial hair here barely hints at his own future beards, of course

A couple of musical examples, then. Any of the first three albums are good value, but I have always held this up as their masterpiece:

And here’s him plus fellow Softs Hugh Hopper and Robert Wyatt guesting for Syd Barrett:

The world isn’t suffering enough, apparently

Putin revives Soviet-era rival to Eurovision after Russia banned from contest

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a revival of the Soviet-era alternative to the Eurovision Song Contest, Intervision, which he claimed will counter the decadence of modern Western culture.
Mr Putin signed the decree on Monday, ordering the Intervision Song Contest be held in Moscow this year.
China, Cuba, Brazil and former Soviet republics such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Belarus are expected to take part.
The original Intervision was launched in the 1960s as the USSR’s alternative to Eurovision. […]
“The contest will be open for participation of all countries that wish to do so,” the planning documents said.
“Artists may not perform songs that call for violence, humiliate the honour and dignity of society, and it is required that political themes in the lyrics are completely excluded.”
Participants must “respect cultural, ethical and religious traditions of other peoples of the world”.

So basically it’s Eurovision but even more useless. Just what the world was needing. Can’t say I’m not at least slightly confused about Brazil being among the expected participants, though, given it was never a Soviet or communist state back then… the complete opposite, indeed, with the military dictatorship of the 60s using the threat of communism taking over like it did in Cuba to justify taking Brazil over themselves. Whatever, I suppose Ukraine is just glad to know it won’t be invited…

The final show (until the next one)?

OOOOH. I’m not particularly thrilled by some of the support acts (so much for Slayer breaking up, too, eh), but if I were able to travel at all I’d be sorely tempted by this. One more go round—avowed “final” shows don’t always turn out that way, do they?—but this time with Bill Ward back in the saddle? Oh my. I’m assuming this means everyone is actually fit for the task, given Bill’s health got in the way of the reformation and tours around 13 and Ozzy hasn’t been a picture of health himself either (though those spinal injuries seem to have been dealt with), and I have a more than sneaking suspicion this could wind up being a slightly sad display of four old blokes pushing a once-great thing beyond the point where they should’ve let it rest… but goddamn, if I were in any position to go to this thing, I absolutely would.

Stick this up your arse too, Gavin

Far-right group Proud Boys loses legal naming rights to Black church it vandalized

The Proud Boys have lost control of their own name after the far-right extremist group subjected a Black church in Washington DC to a “hateful and overtly racist” attack during the violent final days of Donald Trump’s first presidency.
The ruling Monday by Judge Tanya Jones Bosier of Washington DC’s superior court grants the church – the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal church – power over how the Proud Boys moniker is used. Bosier’s decision opens a pathway to seizing proceeds from the sale of any merchandise featuring the white supremacist group’s name, logos and insignia, too.
Lawyers for the church sought the ruling to satisfy a $2.8m judgment stemming from the December 2020 attack during a rally by Trump supporters who falsely claimed that victory was stolen from him when he lost the presidential election that year to Joe Biden.
Several Proud Boys members scaled a wall at the church and embarked on a rampage of vandalism that included burning a Black Lives Matter (BLM) banner. […]
Bosier’s ruling on Monday recognized a lawsuit filed last year by the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison law firm and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, on behalf of the church that asserted the far-right militia had not paid up.
The group “engaged in fraudulent activity to prevent the church from collecting the judgment”, the lawsuit stated, “including terminating the Proud Boys entity and surrendering its trademark registration”.
The group must seek permission from the church before it can use its name or traditional symbols for any revenue-creating venture, according to Bosier’s ruling, which was reported by the New York Times. Proud Boys usually dress in black polo shirts with a yellow laurel leaf as their logo.

In a world where things are increasingly dogshit, it’s nice to know at least some of the chuds are still getting the shit heaped on them that they richly deserve.

I think Art would like words…

Oh dear. Brother Damien appears to be not exactly making friends with this statement he put out earlier… for one thing, I don’t think anyone was accusing the Terrifier films of trying to make “political” statements in the first place, though perhaps predictably quite a few people have crawled out to be all OMG DAMIEN ALL ART IS POLITICAL AND CALLING YOUR WORK “APOLITICAL” IS A POLITICAL ACT ITSELF… and others are saying it’s because David Howard Thornton and Lauren LaVera, the stars of the franchise, are both massive “wokies”, vehemently anti-fash and pro-LGBTQ and all that, and MAGA dickheads have been coming after them and Leone’s just trying to keep a distance without taking sides, but then again Leone’s apparently come out and said he agrees with Thornton’s stance… so what’s this really about? I don’t know. Everything is headache-inducing these days, and the world of cheap gore cinema is evidently no different…